My 65 Gallon Mixed Reef

[Bello]

I HATE BURNT TIPS!!!!! Struggled with that for 2 bloody years :furious:

Sucks to have salinity off, but more than anything else, glad you found the problem :thumbsup:. The worst feeling is not knowing what's off, and going nuts trying every thing possible.

It's funny how even your poopie acros look way better than most of mine . The baby blue acro looks like it's gonna be a tough save though .

BTW, you should know that I bribed Kevin with gum leaves to recalibrate your refracto, on the sly .

 

[sahin]

Ah mate, sorry about the continuing coral issues.

With regards to the Salinity, a couple of years ago I took a large vial to my LFS and made them take the water out of their most amazing display to fill up that vial. They test their water properly etc, and I trusted the water because this T5 lit SPS tank had the most amazing colours. Anyway, I use this sample of water to calibrate my refractometer (D&D Deltec branded). I use it rather like the Fauna Marin Reference solution.

I still have 90% of the solution. I only open the vial for a few seconds to take a ml or two out every week or two.

Just an idea, rather than spending money on a reference solution.

Hope everything else pulls through mate. :uhoh2:

 

[martinphillip03]

Bigs, Sorry to here about your prelims. This is the one thing that scares me about an SPS tank. There is no such thing as a minor mistake.

Marty

 

[markalot]

Sorry to hear of your troubles, but I bet you recover quickly.

I purchased some 35ppt calibration fluid after I could never keep my salinity stable. This is when I discovered to never calibrate with RO, even if the damn refractometer instructions say it's ok. I had a bad refractometer and purchased a new one which has been holding calibration ever since.

Just yesterday, in another effort to nuke my tank, I added what I thought was simple calcium (Seachem Reef Calcium) because my alk was steady but calcium down to 360. Bam, everything closed up. Seems Seachem Reef Calcium is not really straight calcium but rather some industrial goo with a rather lengthy explanation of how it is supposed to work.

This hobby can be damn frustrating at times! Fortunately everything seemed to recover with little apparent damage.

 

[FastUno]

Wow. I am scared of Acros now...they now give me nightmares! I did not know one swing could lead to another & no matter what you try thereafter that is it.

I got a taste for easy to care for SPS's & it was like a train going full speed ahead. Nothing you could do except watch to see what happens. You always second think things though. I could have done this or that thing better.

 

[biggles]

Sorry about your troubles biggles.
But. thanks for taking the time to document things and tell us how you go about troubleshooting problems. It's really helpful.

Thanks mate, obviously i'm making these stupid stuff ups on purpose just for demonstration purposes........

I HATE BURNT TIPS!!!!! Struggled with that for 2 bloody years

Sucks to have salinity off, but more than anything else, glad you found the problem :thumbsup:. The worst feeling is not knowing what's off, and going nuts trying every thing possible.

It's funny how even your poopie acros look way better than most of mine . The baby blue acro looks like it's gonna be a tough save though .

BTW, you should know that I bribed Kevin with gum leaves to recalibrate your refracto, on the sly .

Hey Bello, tbh mate nothing would surprise me if it was wrong lately lol, i'm seriously over all these unnecessary setbacks that i've caused. Things are still doing no better but i'm only at 1.0245 and it's only been a couple of days.

Ah mate, sorry about the continuing coral issues.

With regards to the Salinity, a couple of years ago I took a large vial to my LFS and made them take the water out of their most amazing display to fill up that vial. They test their water properly etc, and I trusted the water because this T5 lit SPS tank had the most amazing colours. Anyway, I use this sample of water to calibrate my refractometer (D&D Deltec branded). I use it rather like the Fauna Marin Reference solution.

I still have 90% of the solution. I only open the vial for a few seconds to take a ml or two out every week or two.

Just an idea, rather than spending money on a reference solution.

Hope everything else pulls through mate. :uhoh2:

Hi Sahin, thanks mate i'm going to take your advice and get a water sample from my acro LFS and keep it as a reference solution.

Bigs, Sorry to here about your prelims. This is the one thing that scares me about an SPS tank. There is no such thing as a minor mistake.

Marty

Ah don't let my silly stuff ups put you off Marty, considering all the stuff i've done to them i think my SPS are a pretty tough bunch tbh.

Sorry to hear of your troubles, but I bet you recover quickly.

I purchased some 35ppt calibration fluid after I could never keep my salinity stable. This is when I discovered to never calibrate with RO, even if the damn refractometer instructions say it's ok. I had a bad refractometer and purchased a new one which has been holding calibration ever since.

Just yesterday, in another effort to nuke my tank, I added what I thought was simple calcium (Seachem Reef Calcium) because my alk was steady but calcium down to 360. Bam, everything closed up. Seems Seachem Reef Calcium is not really straight calcium but rather some industrial goo with a rather lengthy explanation of how it is supposed to work.

This hobby can be damn frustrating at times! Fortunately everything seemed to recover with little apparent damage.

Hi mate, i'm glad everything is ok with your reef. I used to use Kent turbo calcium years ago, it's just calcium without the side order of helpful crap thrown in......

Wow. I am scared of Acros now...they now give me nightmares! I did not know one swing could lead to another & no matter what you try thereafter that is it.

I got a taste for easy to care for SPS's & it was like a train going full speed ahead. Nothing you could do except watch to see what happens. You always second think things though. I could have done this or that thing better.

Hey mate, all my stuff is having a group grumpy session atm but i'm sure they'll get back to work in a week or two. I've never actually run low salinity before but the STN is so much slower than anything i've experienced before. Tips are taking 3-4 days to actually die which is extremely slow tissue loss in my experience.


So i have salinity at 1.0245 and did some more sand removal today which added another 40L of water change. It's very weird to watch the slow creeping damage which is still happening here there and every where. Polyps remain in the bare corallites for days even though all tissue has receded so i have dead white tips with colorful polyps poking out in the current as if nothing was wrong lol.

This is the tank after my first attempt at a water change and sand removal.

After today's sand removal session, i bumped the raft whilst doing the water change and it turned a bit which i quite liked so i spun it about 45 degrees which looks pretty cool. I also moved it forward so i could put the red magnet table up behind it on the rear wall, i did that after taking this pic. As you can see the water got a tad filthy lol.

I think i'm going to catch the picasso clown and put him in the sump so i can put the two clarks in the display and get an anemone. I'll move the other 3 fish in the sump into the display at the same time.......... you don't think i went to a LFS to get water and just got water do ya's........... it's me remember lol.

 

[sahin]

Are you seriously going to put an anemone in your display? - With all those SPS in there...:worried:

 

[martinphillip03]

Probably a Green Bubbletip Anemone.

Marty

Are you seriously going to put an anemone in your display? - With all those SPS in there...:worried:

 

[biggles]

Are you seriously going to put an anemone in your display? - With all those SPS in there...:worried:

Well probably not after you put it like that lol. I see other guys with SPS dominant displays keeping an anemone but with my track record it'll probably end in disaster - i was just thinking out loud really.

Probably a Green Bubbletip Anemone.

Marty

Sahin won't let me have one so that idea is out Marty.

I still think everyone would enjoy watching me do my nut when an anemone burns a path of death through my acros..........:crazy1: You guys know i'm basically here just to amuse you with my silly attempts at reefing after all. :beer:

Btw i'm going back to doing things the way i used to when i never had problems keeping acros. The SPS flavor of the month phos level monitoring is nothing but a wank like all the other things that come and go in this hobby. Next year it'll be some other parameter that everyone will be wasting time and money on with stuff all result. Don't bother asking me what nitrate and phos are in future because i have no intention of ever testing for either again.

 

[martinphillip03]

I immediatly think of Will Ferrel in old School. :lolspin:

Marty

Btw i'm going back to doing things the way i used to when i never had problems keeping acros. The SPS flavor of the month phos level monitoring is nothing but a wank like all the other things that come and go in this hobby. Next year it'll be some other parameter that everyone will be wasting time and money on with stuff all result. Don't bother asking me what nitrate and phos are in future because i have no intention of ever testing for either again.

 

[biggles]

I cleaned the glass yesterday and this morning there is algae already on the glass - i don't need a Hanna to tell me i released a lot of algae food into the water when i did my sand removal........

 

[maddmaxx]

great looking tank...and if you really wanted an anemone i would get one. but i would suggest tryin to pair your picasso rather then go wit clarkiis, they get big and extremely aggressive. and to me they arent as eye catching as your picasso...

 

[sahin]

Well probably not after you put it like that lol. I see other guys with SPS dominant displays keeping an anemone but with my track record it'll probably end in disaster - i was just thinking out loud really.



Sahin won't let me have one so that idea is out Marty.

I still think everyone would enjoy watching me do my nut when an anemone burns a path of death through my acros..........:crazy1: You guys know i'm basically here just to amuse you with my silly attempts at reefing after all. :beer:

Btw i'm going back to doing things the way i used to when i never had problems keeping acros. The SPS flavor of the month phos level monitoring is nothing but a wank like all the other things that come and go in this hobby. Next year it'll be some other parameter that everyone will be wasting time and money on with stuff all result. Don't bother asking me what nitrate and phos are in future because i have no intention of ever testing for either again.

Hi mate,

With regards to the Anemone, IF you were setting up a new tank, then fine; start tank, once it is ready for the nem, add it and get your flow correct and finalised for how you want it for the SPS. Let the nem find its place...it aint necessarily going to be where you want it to stay.

Anyway, once it is settled, you can add the SPS etc. But from this point on, any major change like an upgrade to the lighting or flow can annoy then nem causing it to go round looking for somewhere else nice to sit its butt.

So, yes, many people do have nems in an SPS tank, but usually start off with one...hence FAR less chance of it moving later.

I would love to keep one...I see so many nice ones at the LFS, but never take the chance.

With regards to your tank; I was about to ask you to take out the GFO, or at least half the amount you have in the tank.

I recall you are using Rowaphos? - That stuff is very efficient and fast acting and hence I never use it.

You wont believe it, but I have about 1 litre of GFO in my sump right at this moment.

However: it is a VERY SLOW acting GFO. I have more than 0.5 litre in a bag with slow water running over it. I also have slightly less than 0.5 litre in a reactor...the flow for the reactor has been T'd off the return pump and I am only running about 10 litres per hour through that reactor. So fairly slow flow.

Note that I didnt add all of it at once, but slowly over weeks and weeks added more. The stuff in the bag is the oldest, and it will be chucked out in a few months.

I am only using the GFO to keep PO4 enough to keep algae controlled. When I upgrade to a large cube I will utilise a whole lot more biological algae control like fishes and urchins etc.

So does this mean you are going to stop using GFO? Or are you simply going to stop measuring PO4 and use a small amount and change out monthly etc?

Sorry about the continued issues you are having.

 

[biggles]

great looking tank...and if you really wanted an anemone i would get one. but i would suggest tryin to pair your picasso rather then go wit clarkiis, they get big and extremely aggressive. and to me they arent as eye catching as your picasso...

Thanks for the info on the clarkii's mate. If i get another picasso is there any chance mine will kill the new one. I've never added a clown to a tank already housing one. My last tank i added two captive bred ocellaris and they sorted things out with no fuss.

Hi mate,

With regards to the Anemone, IF you were setting up a new tank, then fine; start tank, once it is ready for the nem, add it and get your flow correct and finalised for how you want it for the SPS. Let the nem find its place...it aint necessarily going to be where you want it to stay.

Anyway, once it is settled, you can add the SPS etc. But from this point on, any major change like an upgrade to the lighting or flow can annoy then nem causing it to go round looking for somewhere else nice to sit its butt.

So, yes, many people do have nems in an SPS tank, but usually start off with one...hence FAR less chance of it moving later.

I would love to keep one...I see so many nice ones at the LFS, but never take the chance.

With regards to your tank; I was about to ask you to take out the GFO, or at least half the amount you have in the tank.

I recall you are using Rowaphos? - That stuff is very efficient and fast acting and hence I never use it.

You wont believe it, but I have about 1 litre of GFO in my sump right at this moment.

However: it is a VERY SLOW acting GFO. I have more than 0.5 litre in a bag with slow water running over it. I also have slightly less than 0.5 litre in a reactor...the flow for the reactor has been T'd off the return pump and I am only running about 10 litres per hour through that reactor. So fairly slow flow.

Note that I didnt add all of it at once, but slowly over weeks and weeks added more. The stuff in the bag is the oldest, and it will be chucked out in a few months.

I am only using the GFO to keep PO4 enough to keep algae controlled. When I upgrade to a large cube I will utilise a whole lot more biological algae control like fishes and urchins etc.

So does this mean you are going to stop using GFO? Or are you simply going to stop measuring PO4 and use a small amount and change out monthly etc?

Sorry about the continued issues you are having.

Thanks for taking the time to explain the anemone issue Sahin, makes a lot of sense so i might give that idea a miss.......... for now........

I can't believe you have that much GFO running lol, as i said a while back though it doesn't matter what you do as long as it works for you. In regards to the Rowaphos i only have a single bag with 4 tablespoons running passively now and i intend to run that little bit long term and balance the system out with that in place. You know as well as i do how easy it is to monitor nutrients with your eyes once you know what you're doing and since the Hanna is a pain in the bum procedure and all my water straight from the ocean measures undetectable phos levels i will keep my acros in the same water. Acros will grow despite dirty water not because of it. It is the water dirtying process (feeding) that gives your reef and corals nourishment, not the polluted water. I intend to get another 10-15lbs of good quality live rock to add in the sump though as compared to my previous tanks i am very light on in respect to LR. Lots of things like this have been occurring to me lately when i've been wondering why this tank hasn't bloomed like my previous ones did after a year in. Stupid goofs aside i've never seen things take off as they should be doing so perhaps i've had salinity off for a very long time causing issues, no idea tbh. Whatever the overall cause or causes i'm going to sort the tank out once and for all and get it locked into a real rhythm. Replacing the sand with something that stays in place is long overdue. The two WP-25's and the 6095 are not enough flow so i'm going to get a WP-40 and swap it with a WP-25. I want something punching hard through the water from one end to the other. I once put a 1500 gal or 6000L per hour Laguna pond pump up one end of my 4x2x2 which blew a bucket of water out the end when i turned it on lol - at least i can adjust the WP-40

Ok had my little phos rant, i'll leave the subject alone now except to say that if anyone asks me to test the levels down the track it's highly likely i won't and will just lie and say it's zero........ :smokin:

Salinity is at 1.0255 right now and nothing has looked wrong so hopefully it's really at 1.0255 lol - i still have no faith in the refractometer until i get a better sample to calibrate it with. Color might be off a bit but i wanted to show you what i see as a good sign on the blue stag. Most of the areas and spots on the branch tips are now covered lightly in brown algae without new stark white dead spots at the edges so i'm hoping the die off is abating across the acros. You can see the white bundles of mesenterial filaments in the corallites that are not happy just above the big dead patch and the weird color of that branches tip. Alk dropped over the last 50ml dose period from 8.0 to 7.7, nothing much but any rise in alk draw is a good thing at the moment. Colors on everything are still drab but that will improve as the alk draw increases over time.

Potatohead launched at me just after this pic. I nearly took a video of him hanging out under the camera box, he looked like a giant monster invading the reef lol.

I found this molt on the bottom today, pretty sure it's a stunning red porcelain crab that has been in the tank for many months - obviously it has no intention of actually making itself visible the stupid &^$#. Typical that i have to have a bright red crab with agoraphobia. :spin3:

 

[Bello]

HMMMMM, so what's your phos at now?

Looks like a little too much stuff going on right now, biggles, exactly like me ...

FWIW, I was never able to keep phos low without carbon dosing, and my goal for chasing it was primarily to keep algae out, not that it's working :lol:

So which fish did you pick up?

 

[biggles]

HMMMMM, so what's your phos at now?

Looks like a little too much stuff going on right now, biggles, exactly like me ...

FWIW, I was never able to keep phos low without carbon dosing, and my goal for chasing it was primarily to keep algae out, not that it's working :lol:

So which fish did you pick up?

There's always too much stuff going on in our tanks mate, i have no idea what actually occurred and none as to what's actually happening right now tbh lol...... i think they need another sub forum for SPS keepers like us Bello - the roller coaster reef keepers, we know how to give an acro one hell of ride in our reefs. :facepalm:

Any way you can feed the tank and still keep algae under control is fine in my books Bello. I need lots more small snails for the display, i have always had hundreds of snails populating the tank so i must be providing plenty of algae for them to sustain the population. That's another big difference with this system in that i didn't get a good population of the smaller turbo snails going in the first 1-2 months as i should have. More rock and more snails will see things much easier to control for me just because i'm used to doing it that way i guess. I was watching a reef doco last night and it reminded me just how much algae is around the acros and how many snails are eating it in the wild.

I bought 3 small Stocky Anthias - Pseudanthias hypselosoma. They were only $70- for the 3 because they aren't wanker anthias like the other stupid Houdini anthias i tried. They aren't amazingly pretty but they're still alive and eating like pigs so i think i'll chuck em in the display and see if the bigglemuda triangle of anthias thing happens again........... i'm pretty sure those last anthias i tried went to sleep in the rocks and woke up in the cockpit of a missing WWII fighter plane.........:crazy1:

 

[sahin]

Hey mate. Its good that the STN has stopped. With no more bright white patches/spots it sure means the STN has ceased. Fingers crossed for you that things go well from this point on.

Your observation regarding the great number of herbivores on the reefs is spot on. All these companies have products that basically strip the water of all goodies in the tank...the crap still stays in the tank. Hence why there are so many pale SPS threads or threads about SPS issues. I think feeding the tank well and having a good clean up crew is a very good idea.

Due to having a small tank I cannot have the variety of herbivores as I would like, but for my next tank this is going to change.

That is the most beautiful Porcelain crab I have ever seen mate! The fact its still living and has even molted means he is getting plenty of food.

 

[Bello]

There's always too much stuff going on in our tanks mate, i have no idea what actually occurred and none as to what's actually happening right now tbh lol...... i think they need another sub forum for SPS keepers like us Bello - the roller coaster reef keepers, we know how to give an acro one hell of ride in our reefs. :facepalm:

I bought 3 small Stocky Anthias - Pseudanthias hypselosoma. They were only $70- for the 3 because they aren't wanker anthias like the other stupid Houdini anthias i tried. They aren't amazingly pretty but they're still alive and eating like pigs so i think i'll chuck em in the display and see if the bigglemuda triangle of anthias thing happens again........... i'm pretty sure those last anthias i tried went to sleep in the rocks and woke up in the cockpit of a missing WWII fighter plane.........:crazy1:

:lol: roller coaster is an understatement!!!...I just need to settle at some point . I'm convinced about the need to feed, just need to step up the filtration to manage it. Still getting algae on the glass within a day or two.

Those anthias look pretty tough. I've had a lot of luck with pseudanthias marcia, looks almost identical except for the red spots that I've seen on pics online. I've had the best success with those, with the others I've failed miserably.....

Now that Sahin pointed it out, that is by far the best looking porcelain crab I've ever seen

 

[sh0ck]

GL with recovering.
I dont think that in tank with flow blowing 3mm sand around would be any spot for BTA to be happy.

 

[martinphillip03]

Bigglemuda Triangle - Classic, might be the word of 2014.

Marty